 I am calling the meeting of the Committee on Outreach, Communications, and Appointments to order at 9.37 a.m. You have a number of items in your packet today. There are two agendas. One is the agenda that was the public posting. The other is an agenda that says Agenda 2019-923 and then in brackets for meeting. It is just a slightly more detailed agenda, but that's probably the one you want to have in front of you today. So, first thing is announcements. So, first announcement is we have a minute taker. I sent an email to Phyllis, who's been our volunteer minute taker for several months last week, thanking her for her service to our committee, which I think we can all agree was a really great service as we navigated some really difficult decisions. And so I think we're all very grateful for everything that Phyllis did for us. And I hope she spends her Monday mornings doing something slightly more fun from now on. Alyssa mentioned we might want to briefly discuss how we want to do minutes. So, the process thus far has been Phyllis would send them to George or Darcy, or was it just George? See the one I was talking about? Either George or Darcy, and they would sort of clean them up, fix them, put them in a packet, and then I, as chair, would approve them. We can continue that practice or we could have the minutes just sent to me as chair and I could approve them or we could go back to actually having the committee review and vote on minutes. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but is there any preference for that going forward since we do have a new minute-taker? Yes, Sarah. I feel like just having you have them sent to you and you doing them is more expedient. I think it makes the minutes show up quicker, so I'm all for that. Okay, other thoughts? What she said. Alyssa, Darcy? I think I'm fine with that. So you, the minutes would be sent to you and then what? So the minutes would be sent to me for review and an approval before they would go in the approved minutes packet. So why don't we just have them go to the whole committee and then if we don't have objections and you approve them, then they're approved. But it seems like at some point they should go to us, right? And if we don't say anything, then it's assumed that we approve them. Does that make sense? Alyssa? So there are various legal options associated with this and the one that we've been using is different than the one that the Foltown Council uses in that we've had Villas's reviewed, as Evan said, by either of you or George, and then Evan was approving them and they were considered done and they were not coming back to the committee like they had at the very beginning because we'd come up with this more streamlined process. I would suggest that at least as we get our feet under us because we know how difficult it was, even though Villas had taken minutes for hundreds of different committees over the years that weren't open meeting law required minutes, just till we all get familiar with what the new process is, that if they get sent from Martha to you and then you send them out to us just, or she can send them to us whichever way you wanna do it, but then you tell us what the deadline is. Like I'm gonna approve these on such and such date unless you see there's something wrong with them and then they'll go in our packet, right? And then you'll also give them to staff in Paul's office to ensure they show up on the website that's still kind of a funky thing in terms of how stuff gets up there. So I like that. So what we'll do is I'll have them sent to me and then I will share them with the committee and say, I will look them over, I'll give them a cursory look, change anything that I think maybe needs to be changed, send them out to the committee and say, these minutes will be considered approved unless you offer corrections by X-Date. Does that work for everyone? Okay, so we will do that. And I will admit, I have, we have a little bit of a backlog in minutes getting uploaded onto the website that's online to-do list for this week. Because if you look at the OCA meeting on the town website, we do need to get some more recent minutes up there. So I will be working on that this week. The second announcement we have is that there is a vacancy on the ZBA. We had one resignation from the ZBA. And so there's a current vacancy. I wrote and the town posted a vacancy announcement as required by the charter that was posted to the town bulletin board on September 12th. And so per the charter, that vacancy has to be posted for no less than 14 days. So we are still in that 14-day period. We are not going to be discussing this vacancy today or what we're gonna do about it, that it will be on the agenda for October 7th, which will be after that 14-day period. So right now we have the vacancy notice up. After that 14-day period, we'll meet on October 7th to discuss how we want to proceed and what our options are with regard to that vacancy on the ZBA. With that, I want to move on to agenda item three, which is discussion and vote on appointments to multiple member bodies filed by the town manager. There are three appointments, there are three sets of appointments. The registers are register of voters. We are going to vote and act on that today and then provide an oral report to the council tonight because the council is expected to act on register of voters at tonight's meeting. The other two are CDBG advisory committee and water supply protection committee. My intention is for our committee to vote on them today, but those won't go before the council until October 7th and will be accompanied by an oral report. So because it's slightly more pressing, let's look at register of voters first. You have the town manager's memo in your packet. The town manager will be joining us in a few minutes. So he will be here to answer any questions we might have, but if we want to take a minute to at least look at these over now and discuss whether we have any questions for the town manager. So we're starting with register of voters. There are two candidates, a three-year term for Demetria Shabazz and a two-year term for Jacqueline Gardner. Questions, comments? George? I believe the church, I don't know if it requires having members of two different, of the two parties as, right? I believe it's a requirement, but what we learn here is that the parties never responded. So does that basically mean that anyone can be placed without, yeah, I don't know. Alyssa? I do. I was hoping you did. Me, me, me, me, me, me, so. As we all know, the charged documents have many shortcomings, so it's not at all surprising that it's perhaps difficult to interpret what it says versus what is on the appointment thing. It's state law that your board of registrars has to have a mix of the political parties that are in your community with some parity. So as was stated in the town manager's report, there's a Republican continuing on, and so we needed Democrats to fill the other seats. We could not have just filled them with Republicans because we thought they were really great candidates because of the way our town voter registration is, which is obviously, based on anyone who knows Amherst, incredibly highly democratic registrations, and of course there's not a category for unenrolled folks, and so it's the major political parties, and I've not heard of anything requiring green representation, for example. But what the part that makes it confusing is, is differently than the 14 day notice that Evan just described associated with the charter, and which was, is not a state law, right? The 14 day notice on CBA is part of our charter, it has nothing to do with state law. State law does decide that for registrar voters you have to have Democrats and Republicans, and it also says you have to reach out to those committees because every single municipality in Massachusetts has a Democratic town committee and a Republican town committee. That doesn't mean they're functioning, that doesn't mean their post office box even works, but there are such things, and in fact, they elect people to serve as official members on our ballots every so often you might recall that on our local ballots we're like, oh yeah, what's that? It's that. But that letter has to go out. So what this means is, once again, unsurprisingly, both the Republican Party and whatever shape it's in and Amherst and the Democratic Party, which has actually had some activity, but also frequently doesn't respond to the request, doesn't respond, so they had first crack at making nominations. And since they didn't, then there's that period, that's what Paul was describing in the memo. Now I can move forward because they didn't respond, but he's not allowed, when he has a vacancy, to just decide, but that is unfortunately typically what happens in Amherst is neither one of those organizations has been particularly well organized over the last several years in terms of responding to that letter. So that's why it's just like this extra layer of stuff that's not related to the charter and is unlike every other committee we have. Other questions or comments on register of voters? So why don't we open, I wanna look at all three of these so we have the chance to ask the time manager any questions while he's here and then we'll vote them after. Why don't we open CDBG advisory? Comments, questions? Alyssa? I just wanna emphasize that process-wise we are getting, we are working on getting more consistent about when we get these reports that they include both the vacancy notice and well, the charge was already there as we discussed in a previous meeting, then adding the vacancy, then adding the reappointment information. So as we've talked about before in terms of like more of a checklist modality associated with these things, we may eventually come up with such a thing to remind ourselves of what was all the things we asked for but those appeared to be all the things we've asked for so the revised notice appears to comply with all the things that we've all agreed to at this meeting with Paul in the past. Yes, so we have the memo, the charge and the vacancy posting. Questions, comments on CDBG advisory? I guess I just question about it looks like Gail Lansky was on the interview team and she was also a candidate. So I think we had talked about that before. It's my- Give the time manager a chance to respond. Paul? Yes. So yeah, so we only interviewed new candidates. So as chair of the CDBG advisory committee she was on the interview team we don't and she was up for reappointment. So I don't, she wasn't interviewing herself obviously. So she was there to interview the new appointment. And you'll notice you'll start to see these more frequently. I was always trying to keep a complete, have you have a complete list for you but some people couldn't come in for this and rather than hold on a couple of appointments I wanted to, you'll see another one coming back for CDBG which I apologize for but I think it's becoming a sort of a puzzle now putting people on different committees and so we'll put some names forward and then you'll have another one on CDBG for another name at some point in time. So I think that's rather than hold on until everything is set up, let these people know that they've been appointed. Dosti, did you have a follow up? No, I just thought that was one of the things that we had asked about earlier but I'm not clear, I'm not clear on it myself so. So we have as a committee discussed two things. One is whether or not to have chairs sit in on interviews when they are up for reappointment. And then the other is whether or not people who are up for reappointment are interviewed themselves. There's been some discussion about no agreement in this group but the town manager has made his process clear to us and so any discussion or decision we have can only be advisory at best at this point. Alyssa, you had? The third, I believe the third part to that that we'd express concern about but again, not agreement, right, is just as we did on those first two is the idea of are there really vacancies if you're just gonna reappoint people? So why are you advertising vacancies when it's a known quantity that you're going to reappoint because that doesn't seem like you're, in my opinion, that doesn't seem like you're advertising an accurate number of vacancies if your every intention is to appoint including by the obvious scenario of having one of the people who's up for reappointment being one of the deciders in terms of not decider because the town manager's the decider but having significant influence over the decision but I think that we came to the conclusion as Evan stated that while we had mixed opinions on this we were not with one voice even here at OCA that it didn't really matter what we thought because it was the town manager's appointment process but it was something we would keep in mind for our process as well because we've talked about how our process as it changes will serve as hopefully an example of other things we'd like to see in the town manager's process but that doesn't mean we can force him to change it so I appreciate that you brought it up because I continue to have uneasiness about this and I don't want it to just be like well it's his decision so I'm no longer uneasy about it I'm still gonna be uneasy about it but the reality is under the charter it is still his decision and that's just one of the things we're coping with as we move forward with our process to see if we do the same thing with ZBA and planning board next time we do appointments. Mr. Lachlman. So the only reason, one of the important reasons to include someone from the committee itself otherwise it's staff making the decision plus someone from the residence advisory committee who might not know anything about the committee so having the chair, I feel having the chair whoever the existing chair is present for the interviews is an important way to communicate with what the committee what the expectations of the committee are. Alyssa. Again I will follow up because we're kind of just rewinding our entire conversation having had that before because what that didn't just say is what I have said before which is the fact that here at this body we decided not to have those chairs present so it's absolutely not true that if they're not there that then it depends entirely on staff and RAC. We asked them what their opinions were before we went in to the interview and so you could either have a different member that isn't up for reappointment which would also be weird or you could get their opinion ahead of time like we did with ZBA and planning board it's not factual that there wouldn't be any information because we in fact got information that we wrote down and provided to people from the chairs it's a different process I obviously think it's a superior process but it isn't that it's impossible to do it without the chair there because we did it without the chair there. And we should note that all of these discussions were summarized in our August 19th OCA report to the council with some detail so that that report and those discussions public the council has it perhaps at some point they might offer their input on these things since I think OCA has discussed these ad nauseam. Any further questions or comments on CDBG advisory committee? Okay, then why don't we look at water supply protection committee? This is the third and final set of appointments the town manager filed on time for today's meeting. There are five people three of which are reappointments. Questions, comments on CDBG advisory? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Alyssa? I'm water supply. Water supply protection committee. Thank you. So many things and I know if I look at text and then I say the text even if I'm not contending to the only thing I was going to bring up is something that's absolutely not under our control which is that the people with the the water supply protection committee was one of the few committees that was really intended when it was first created because I was there when it for specific expertise in areas and what that lends itself to is not a very big pool of people out in the world who have that kind of expertise and we're really fortunate that we can get people with that expertise to serve on this committee and to serve in this role. We're a little complicated about that is because almost all the people in that field as I'm sure our DPW staff would say are men and so we have a real diversity issue associated with this particular committee but that's because it has an expertise and the field is what the field is and so I feel unhappy about that but that's a windmill we can't how can we address because we aren't going to pick someone who doesn't have that set of qualifications merely because they're not a white guy but on the other hand I know that must make people somewhat uncomfortable and it obviously skews our statistics but the importance of the set of skills and so I don't know that there is more outreach to be given but I would assume that Amy would tell you if there was more outreach to be done because of her expertise and the fact that she is one of the few women in this commonwealth that has the level of expertise she does that other people if they had water supply committees would be grabbing her to be on. Mr. Malcolm. So the staff person who supports this is a woman. The two new appointments are both women to the committee so I think even though I think you identified the gender specificness of the applicant pool I'm really proud of the two that are moving forward who are very well qualified. For the questions or comments on water supply protection committee, no? All right so we have looked at all three are there any final questions or comments for the town manager before he leaves us? Darcy. I have an unrelated question that I want to ask before you leave and just about. It's related to OKA though? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to ask if you are thinking of opening up the application process for the Refuse and Recycling Committee? Not at this point. What's, do you have a plan? That committee has been relatively dormant for a while and what its purpose is I think needs a more thorough discussion about what their role is. So I think somewhat, I'm not sure if ECAC is thinking about Refuse as part of their charge in terms of global warming and all that stuff but I don't have a real plan for that committee at this point in time. There are no issues pending coming up other than the solid waste master plan that was presented to the select board a couple years ago now. Oh it seems like there are a lot of issues pending. A lot of interest in the community about trash hauling and composting and you know there's the zero waste issue that's just kind of hanging. It was presented to the select board and they put it off to the new form of government and so there's a whole plan out there ready to go. So I'm hoping that that will you know, that will reconstitute that committee. Alyssa? And I can appreciate both those points of view because I have seen it be relatively dormant and it is in a different place than when the transfer station was much more active and it had different rules about what was able to do there and yet also appreciating what you're saying about all the other ongoing and upcoming issues. The fact that we no longer had Susan Wade as a part-time employee who was particularly affiliated with the group and all the educational efforts they did was one of the reasons it struggled a little bit to because we didn't have an employee that way assigned to that way anymore. Although obviously other people are covering some of the basics, but the plan just to be clear that they came up with was not adopted by the select board. So in terms of being put off and in terms of saying the plan's ready, it's ready based on the opinions of the recycling and refuse management committee and so I guess the question that that then leads me to based on what you guys have just said is a timeline that just given all the other things that are on all the plates of when we might see that again and how the town manager envisions talking to the council about that versus and perhaps becoming part of another committee's charge or whether it's council committee or a non-council committee like ECAT or if it's something that's going to be done, a decision that's going to be made in isolation continued discussion with the town council whereas because the different change in government, right? If we hadn't changed governments, eventually the select board would have been a little bit engaged in that. I don't know if the expectation is that the town council will be at all engaged in that moving forward and again we've all got a million things going on. So I don't know what's even a realistic timeline to expect. I know some people like wanted to do it yesterday but maybe just getting a sense of to be able to say go talk to Paul and he's thinking about six months from now I think would be more useful than just not knowing. Did you have another comment also? I thought your hand was up before Darcy talked but perhaps I was incorrect. I would love to move on. So on our delightful and much appreciated report that you wrote for us that's in the town council packet tonight that was based on our CAF conversation at our last meeting because that's not up for any discussion tonight. I mean it'll be part of the committee reports right but it's not an agenda item for discussion tonight at town council. Not knowing because we didn't get to that part of the agenda yet. If that's what we're planning for the seventh that the town council will start to talk about that because we had requested a vote from the town council for that and I just wondered why we had the town manager here if now is the time to ask him if he had any thoughts that would help inform our discussion associated with that because we had that conversation without him previously. If he has. Do you have any idea what we're talking about? I don't. So briefly because I know you do have another meeting. Last week Oka devoted the majority of its meetings to talking about CAF's potential improvements or visions to CAF's. And one of the discussion points we had was regarding sort of the different issues that we faced when it came to CAF's for planning board, ZBA, finance and those that the town council points with regard to when we got them, when interviews were scheduled, information that we would have liked to see that wasn't there. And that discussion concluded with a vote from this committee to recommend that the CAF for finance plan to board and ZBA be separated from the rest of them so that there is a CAF at this point would be identical but a CAF for all town manager appointed committees and a CAF for the town council appointed committees. So that if you wanted to apply for one of those three you click this link and those CAF's would then much like they were with this like board would be automatically distributed to all councilors. So we saw CAF's as they came in so that we would have the full pool. That was a vote we took to recommend that the town council vote to do that. And that's totally doable and easily to do and highly recommend it as well. So that'd be great. All right, well with that I'm going to release the town manager. Thank you. And let's do these appointments. So why don't we start with the register of voters? George? I need practice. So I'm going to try and practice and you can correct me if I may. I want to move that OCA recommend that the town council approve the following town manager appointments to the registrar of voters for a three year term. Demetria Shabazz. I can spell that if it would help. Why don't you read it off the motion sheet for town council tonight, which she can just copy and paste from tonight's town council motion sheet rather than you having to worry about. And I don't have the motion sheet in front of me. I'll pull it up. He wants to practice me. Oh, oh, oh, oh, sorry. Thank you. So and you can correct me, I don't mind, but so for three year term, Demetria Shabazz, S-H-A-B-A-Z-Z. For a two year term, Jacqueline Gardner, G-A-R-D-N-E-R. The only, is there a second? Three year term for Demetria Shabazz expires June 30, 2022. The two year term for Jacqueline Gardner expires June 30, 2021. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Okay, that I'll call the question. All those in favor, raise your hands and say aye. Aye. Aye, that's unanimous. Let's look at CDBG advisory committee. George, would you like to make a motion? I'm gonna try again. I move that OCA recommend that the town council approve the following town manager appointments to the community development block grant advisory committee. CDBG for a three year term to expire June 30, 2022. Gail Lansky, L-A-N-S-K-Y. For a two year term expiring June 30, 2021. Stephanie Leon Bruno, L-E-O-M-B-R-U-N-O. There's a motion, is there a second? Alyssa, do you have an edit? I know you do. I just want to ensure the dates are in there beyond that. I don't know what I just missed because honestly, I'm looking for a document from August that you probably could have just told me where it was because I'm thinking about our next conversation. So if it has the dates and everything, I'm good. The only thing it doesn't have that I believe, the only thing it doesn't have that I believe we usually put in is the reappointment. So, George? I'm sorry? Well, this isn't on tonight's motion sheet because this one's for action, yeah. So the only thing I would ask to be added is to specify that Gail Lansky's a reappointment, which we've been doing in the past. Accept that? It's even written there. Okay. So there's a... George moved... Who seconded? Thank you, Sarah. Any further discussion, Alyssa? Can the minutes reflect that this is what happens when you have a huge retreat on a Saturday after a black party on Thursday, a breakfast on a Friday? You know, we're a little under-caffeinated at this point. I think you did a great job, George. We are almost there. It's awesome. So now I'm going to call the question. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. All right, motion passes unanimously. And so let's turn to Water Supply Protection Committee. Would anyone like to make a motion? George. Ready, Alyssa? Thank you, dear. I move that OCA recommend that the Town Council approve the following Town Manager appointments to the Water Supply Protection Committee for a three-year term to expire June 30, 2022. Linda Arsenault. A-R-S-E-N-A-U-L-T. Anna Martini. M-A-R-T-I-N-I. And John Tobiason. T-O-B-I-A-S-O-N. His is a reappointment. Do you think I should? Thank you. Thank you. John Tobiason reappointment. Thank you, Alyssa. For a two-year term to expire... No, I just did it for your term. Thank you. Yes, you did. This isn't easy, folks. You're doing great. Just keep going. Thank you. I'm trying. For a two-year term to expire June 30, 2021, Lyons, L-Y-O-N-S, Witten, W-I-T-T-E-N, reappointment, Brian Yellen, Y-E-L-L-E-N, reappointment. The motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? Alyssa. Although you do read with wonderful diction, George, in terms of how people's names are spelled, that's not a practice we need to use going forward. We'll ensure that Martha has a copy of all the agenda materials. I don't know if it's a copy and paste, so if anybody makes a mistake and a name, it just can get promulgated every time, rather than you, because you're really good at that. No, no. Maybe not force us to do that. Thank you. Further discussion? All right. Call the question. All those in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. And that's unanimous. Okay, so again, the Town Council tonight is only going to be taking up registered voters. The other two will be in a written report to Council for October 7th, which is when they're expected to act on those. Alyssa. I'm sorry to be a pest, but I know I'm feeling like one already this morning, is the... I'm not sure we need a written report for the other two, either unless you're going to tell me what it's going to have in it that would be any different than your verbal report tonight for Board of Registrar's, because I really appreciate the way we staggered that and had some big discussion, because we didn't know what would come out of our discussion, but since what came out of our discussion was nothing substantive in terms... I would like to just see our report be here's what the motions were that George read so beautifully, and here's that report from August that talked about the same things we just went over, because that was exactly the conversation we had all over again about chairs, et cetera. And so I don't see that there's any need to write anything more than that in the report, and so I'm trying to make it easier for you, but I also, unless there's something else you were thinking that you wanted to share with us, needs to be in there, I feel like it's literally just the motions, and that previous report, like, CC, remember how we told you this? That was my intention was the latter. I want to have a written report. I think that it's nice for counselors to know before they're about to vote how it goes, but my intention is it will likely be, like, a half-page report, and I can attach that report from before. Yes, okay. I can do it, but yes, otherwise the new information would be very short, but I do want them to know before they have to vote, or seconds before. Okay. So with that, we will move on to agenda item four. So this is a continuation of what was going to be a discussion over the next several meetings, over the next several months about a revised process to recommend appointments to multiple member bodies that are appointed by the town council. We opened that discussion last week with a discussion of community activity forms. I expressed my desire earlier to sort of structure our discussion through the process by which someone goes from becoming an applicant to an appointed member of a committee. The first step is they apply. We will request from the town council in the near future that CIS are separated out for town council committees and sent immediately to us. Once we have them, we have a decision to make, which is when does this committee decide that we move forward. And so to date, because town manager staff have been in control of all of the CIS, the practice to date has been that the town manager staff receives the CIS and then decides when to move forward in schedules interviews and we never saw the applicant pool until after interviews are already scheduled. Under this new system in which we receive the CIS, we will know the entire pool from the beginning. What that means is we have a little bit more control over deciding whether or not we should move forward. Sometimes that might be a timing issue, but sometimes it might not be. And ideally we wouldn't move forward because we absolutely have to because of some time constraint. We'd be able to look at the pool and say, do we want to move forward with interviews? Do we want to maybe hold off and do some more recruiting? And so I wanted to have a discussion first about any thoughts we had on once we get all of these applications and we start thinking about do we want to move on to the next stage of interviews. How do we look at the pool as to whether we feel the pool is sufficient to move forward? Is that something we even have to look at? Perhaps we decide, you know what? The pool is the pool and we don't even decide whether it's too big, too small, or what not. We just go anyway because we have to make appointments. So maybe we don't even have to consider it, but I wanted this committee to have some discussion on assessing the pool and how we make a decision about whether it's time to move forward to interviews. To sort of start us off, I did add to the packet a couple discussion questions. I think there's only like three. These are obviously not everything we probably want to talk about, but it's four A in your packet discussion questions regarding sufficient applicant pool for Town Council appointments. So I will open the floor to any comments or discussion on this aspect. Sarah? So I think it probably goes without saying that when we look at some committees, we get applications. If there are three positions open and we have two or three people, obviously we would want to recruit again. I also think that it would be a good policy for us to be able to have that question be brought up for us to either tick the box or say that we wanted to recruit simply because I think it's important to us to make sure that we have a diversity, we've talked about diversity of gender, of backgrounds and we're also an outreach committee. So I think that part of our job is to take a look at how outreach has been going. Are there thoughts on this generally or in response to any of the three questions on the discussion question sheet? Darcy? I think that it would be kind of artificial to have a particular number of CAS received. But I agree with Sarah that if we have maybe the number of applicants as seats that we probably should reach out again to see if we can recruit some others. I think that a lot of times it's going to have to be like a holistic process and that we're going to be it will be different for each committee because it's more important to get people with specific skills for certain committees than with other committees. So I think it's going to be hard to have very hard and fast rules and numbers about requirements for how we're going to do this. I think we're going to have to do it somewhat holistically. George? I agree with Darcy that hard and fast rules are going to be hard to come by. It sounds like for number one though it might be something if not a hard and fast rule maybe it would be useful to express if we come to an agreement that we would expect there would be at least one more applicant than vacancies so we'd expect at least more than one. Is that or even that doesn't I mean just as an expectation as opposed to just leaving it unstated. Because I share with you the sense that if you have vacancies I mean again we're only talking essentially about three bodies here. Correct. But these two if not all three are somewhat they could be contentious. We've just appointed a number of people to we've appointed a number of people to three committees today that I don't think would raise a great deal of political contention within the community but these appointments I think can. So the thought that we're appointing people to vacancies and we only have the exact number of candidates that there are vacancies I think would be troubling. I may not be troubled by that with other committees at least some of them but with these I think I would be. So I'm speaking for myself but I'm wondering if there's any sense from the committee that we would at least have the expectation that would be more applicants than at least one more applicant than vacancies and if we didn't have that that would be either something that we would seriously have to address or we yeah. I should say when I was writing this question there should there be a threshold number I never anticipated like a hard and fast number for every committee which is why I put relative to number of applicants to vacancies so the idea being if there are do we always want to make sure that we have at least the number of applicants as we do vacancies or do we always want to make sure we have at least as George said one more applicant than vacancies or two more applicants than vacancies or we could just say multiple more and it sounds like from George and Darcy and Sarah I'm hearing then we want to recruit more Alyssa just to make it more complicated in addition to all of those already well expressed concerns there are going to be scenarios where you want to do exactly what the town manager just did although he may have done it for other reasons which is that he didn't fill up the entire community development block grant advisory committee he went ahead and did some appointments and so it may be that we would decide as Darcy indicated that because you have to look at this holistically it may be that we would decide well given that they're about to lose quorum or that they have lost quorum we see these two applicants one of which is a reappointment and again depending on how we do this publicly et cetera but we could refer to them as new and reappointment and not totally give away every detail at this point of the way we've been doing it and we need to fill some seats so we're going to we're going to appoint one or we're going to appoint two even if we literally only have two applicants one of which is a reappointment because we have to but then we're going to advertise to get more so I do think that there is literally no way to come up with anything other than a statement that says we'll think about all these things we will consider all the things that everybody just said as being criteria we'll just have to come to a point to say well it's you know the middle of the month and this is where we are what do we do next because that will then have that discussion and say oh we just heard from the town manager that that committee is having trouble meeting quorum so that will be a different conversation and if we said you know everybody is fine we're just if we're not looking to fill a vacancy like we're just waiting for June 30 and it's only February then we can say oh well we can do a lot more recruiting because we have lots of time. Sarah. So I also would say we're talking about vacancies this is something that Alyssa's brought up is if there's someone there for reappointment do we consider a reappointment a vacancy or not and it would be my preference that we would so say that there were four people who were four vacancies I'm going to say pure vacancies from how I want to say this so there are four vacancies and two people are up for reappointment I would want to see at least like six people I mean I wouldn't want to assume that the reappointments were just considered someone who was up for reappointment was automatically if someone's up for reappointment we don't put their spot that we would put their spot as a vacancy assuming that they would be reappointed does that make, I'm trying to see if that made sense right so the number of vacancies is being determined by working under the assumption that someone who might be up for reappointment isn't guaranteed a spot and so so this operates perhaps a little bit differently than how the time manager has been operating where reappointment George. And I come from this from a different perspective but I'm open to being argued away from it but at the moment I feel somewhat strongly that there is generally a preference for reappointment that doesn't guarantee anything but it is the way it has been done in the committee handbook as it stated but so I would not completely agree with Sarah that it's just like we're starting over that slate is clean and again I feel that someone has served competently for their three years or two years or whatever it is and they're up for reappointment that there should be a expectation as it stated here in the handbook that they would be given preference for a second term especially if we are going to go to term limits or at least talk about them and any specificity I would prefer I would not quite phrase it the way Sarah has. So there's two separate things I think going on and part of it is for the next discussion that we're going to have and so about how much preferential treatment a reappointment gets. Sarah's point I think is just if there's one pure vacancy someone resigns and then there's one person and we want to say we always want to make sure that we have more or we strive to have more applicants than vacancies then we're looking for a minimum of three applicants because that reappointment because the term is ending is still viewed as a vacancy even if there might be preferential as opposed to saying we want two applicants because that person is probably going to be reappointed so there's only one real vacancy. So I guess it's all about how we define a vacancy do we find a vacancy when a term is ending if there's potential for reappointment or do we define a vacancy purely as there's no one who's going to be in that spot. I just wanted to make it really clear because I think this has maybe been a point of either contention or misunderstanding is that I'm definitely not saying just because someone is up for reappointment that I would automatically so if someone's up for reappointment and I'm not necessarily saying that that means we should just dismiss them or that they start from square one obviously they've served and if they've served well then that gives them that gives them that status so I'm not I'm not saying that I want people just to start from square one. Other thoughts on any of these three discussion items or anything with regard to how we assess the efficiency of the pool Alyssa. Yeah I think we do have to be really careful about the way we phrase vacancy not only for the reasons you just expressed but also because I've had many arguments with local newspaper reporters when it comes to elected office where they will sometimes say there's a vacancy on the school committee it's like no not until you know the election happens no one's left yet there are seats that are up for reelection there are seats that are up for appointment or reappointment a vacancy means there's a hole and so we've used some phrasing in the past and we used it recently to say you know they're there and I think the town manager used some of it in his most recent call for applicants which is there may be vacancies right because that covers you from the standpoint of when you're expressing it to the public there may be vacancies we don't know we don't know if everybody who's there already is going to reapply and if we're going to have a you automatically six years kind of rule or not right because we're going to keep arguing about that but you just make it clear that it's not actually vacant until it's vacant and if it's not actually yet vacant then you phrase it as there may be a vacancy because and then we have to decide amongst ourselves within that what that actually means in terms of the numbers and and I of course as you would suspect agree with the idea that reappoint people who are in seats who are technically allowed to be reappointed which is literally everyone right now because there is no nuclear thing where you can't appoint people beyond six years so technically every single person other than Amherst cultural council appointments are eligible to be reappointed for ever so when we say we just need to be clear what kind of vacancy we're talking about are we talking about an upcoming potential vacancy are we talking about a whole we need to fill right now which is why I said I think the conversations different in terms of how many applicants we have if we have a hole to fill right now for quorum and we get an amazing applicant I'm not going to sit there and say I have to wait until a second person applies so that I can feel like I had two people apply for this I want to jump on that person and say let's do it that's obviously a really good solution to our quorum problem here so that's another reason I'm not going to get too close to say it has to always be plus one because we could be sitting here for weeks or are we just going to have somebody turn in a fake CAF so that we can so that we can say we got one I mean that to me does not serve our purposes but it is true that not having a hard and fast rule means we have to talk about it when the time comes more often than we would if we just said oh don't talk to us unless there's X amount in the pool we have to talk about the CA and planning and perhaps finance but certainly the CA and planning is being politically contentious just curious what Alyssa thinks about that because there I think even if you have the candidate from heaven that is just fits the bill perfectly I still have concerns about filling a position on those bodies without with only one candidate whether it's a whole or whatever you want to call it it does seem like our appointments or at least I feel in our case are different at least these two are different than the vast majority of appointments at the town manager makes and that we approve or recommend to the council but do you see that or do you feel that I'm just curious what you make of that I mean nothing Alyssa so I'm going to say that the only reason that people don't accurately perceive that the town manager is appointing things that are just as political is because they're unaware of the power that things like the Board of Health and the historical commission have the zoning board of appeals and planning board in some rubric of measurement of how many power gavels they have or whatever it is it just feels that way because of the press that is available to that and the fact that if you're not upset about something historical commission is done recently but you're probably upset about something planning board is done recently and it's just kind of human nature so that being said I understand what you're saying we obviously have to have no matter what kind of process we end up with which we know I think at this point which made many people unhappy but at least was very clear on what it was that we just need to make sure we keep doing that we need to have something to be clear on what it was but I will I can't agree that because it's a heavily political nature I mean which it is I agree that oh well even though we have an amazing applicant we really can't move on because I need to check off a box that says I have an extra person because that's not how the real world works that's not how job hiring works that's just not how anything works and so I think we need to do more outreach all the time right and I think that it's up to this committee assuming it's still our charge next year to say to have us say we have one it's amazing and that everybody else go but that's not enough and then have a vote okay it's not enough and then we don't go further that's why we discuss and then even if we all say man that person's amazing we're gonna have a five to zero vote amazingly enough and we're gonna go to town council and say there was only one applicant for this for this actual vacancy aren't they amazing and if town council says yeah they are but you know I'd really like to go through the exercise of having the box checked off and they can wait a couple more weeks because we want to interview more people then that's the town council's decision so I think we need to go through those decisions in public rather than what I feel like we're doing if we set up specific numbers we're actually making those decisions not publicly because we're saying it has to sit some place before we can act on it whereas I'm saying let's keep reevaluating throughout the process I mean luckily we're not doing this for 40 committees anymore we're doing this for three we ought to be able to keep track of where we are on any of those individual things and I can't justify this if we've got amazing people to fill it just in hopes that somebody else is going to plot. Darcy. I guess I agree with George on this that because some of these appointments are going to be politically contentious that it would make sense for us to if we have the number of like an equal number of CAFs to the vacancies that it makes sense to do another round it wouldn't take that much time to just do another round to make an attempt to get more applicants a more diverse pool of applicants and at least one additional round if not more than one additional round to try because for our three committees they're so important and we need and we're responsible for them apparently it seems like that's our responsibility to try to get a diverse pool. The other thing that I would note is that it shouldn't really be the number of CAFs it should be the number of CAFs that represent appropriately people who have applied with the appropriate skills and expertise because as we all know we get a lot of CAFs that aren't don't represent the adequate skills and expertise and which shouldn't really be counted. George? I don't know it sounds like that's something that whatever process we finally agree upon is settled through that process. We look at the CAFs and we say oh no, no, no yep, yep, nope but I don't see how we could put it into any kind of rule or statement by the committee that the number of applicants somehow their CAFs have to meet a certain standard it's just my concern is perception politics is perception and I think it's important that people see that this process and we will do this I know but it will be transparent and open and that we are looking at multiple candidates for these positions not just one person and I would be very uncomfortable no matter how good I'm also trying to imagine an emergency that would be such that you'd have to appoint somebody right away or the ZBA couldn't function the ZBA has associates planning board has so I'm just concerned about perception and I'm also concerned about the sense given the nature of these appointments that we bend over backwards to make sure that there's truly a pool and it isn't just you know perceived as a done deal other comments so there seems to be two very different opinions here and I want to try something and this is not an actual vote this is a straw vote but I just want to read off two separate conflicting statements and ask for you to raise your hand if you agree with that statement read them both I will read them both first and then I will ask how many agree with statement one and two because at some point we have to bring forward something that this committee has at least majority agreement on so the two statements are one we should always make sure that we have more CAS than vacancies and if not do more recruiting to move forward and number two is if there's a vacancy to fill if there are good candidates who applied regardless of whether there are fewer applicants than vacancies I recognize there are gray areas in between these are the two opposite sides so can I ask how many people agree with number one and number two okay that's useful sort of useful it's useful not complicated but useful I do want to take a look at the third question which is we've been talking about number I think Darcy brought up a really good but hard to assess point of it's not just the number if you have someone who submits a CAF who is like clearly has no qualifications and probably checked the wrong box do you count that so it's really not about number you're saying but people who actually we would consider appointing we've been talking a lot about number but of course this is obviously a council that cares a lot about diversity there's been discussion of demographics how we present demographic information how we report it the question is we've been talking about number when we're looking at an applicant pool do we also want to consider diversity and demographics so let's say that there are two vacancies and we get seven applicants but they're all men we may have met some number that we all feel comfortable with but maybe perhaps not a diversity of applicants that we feel comfortable with should we even take diversity and demographics into consideration when deciding whether or not to move forward and if so how would we even go about doing that obviously I don't imagine we'd have hard and fast rules but is this something we even want to consider thoughts Darcy yes that's one of the reasons why I think we should just if we don't have adequate diversity and demographics just do another round of outreach at least one additional round is my opinion because I don't see how we could say that we're really trying if we don't do that Sarah so one of the things that someone who's very intelligent I think said to me when we first started considering this process was that if someone is a minority in this society it may be that they need some support and encouragement in applying I would think that if you're in a minority this one I think I guess women there's one that I can at least relate to and say that I could think that one through is that you may assume that you might as well not apply because you know that most likely some of the usual suspects are people who are assuming they would get that position would be of a certain subset of our society and so you wouldn't even try so I think that although if you ask me right now how in the world Sarah are you going to do that outreach I would say I don't know but I think that there is I would want to try to do some outreach to at least make people who are in any minority feel supported they could come forward and have a shot Thank you for saying that that way Sarah because building off of that one of the things I was starting to clang with was when I kept hearing over and over we can do an additional round all the only outreach we formally have right now we're talking about formal numbers and when to decide the literal only outreach that we have formalized right now is putting an announcement on the website why would putting an announcement on a website two weeks from now give us any better of a yield than putting it on today now if we put it on during the religious holidays in December obviously that's a bad time and July is a bad time but beyond that website announcements are not another round of outreach I mean yeah it's the only thing we can check off the box we need to figure out what would outreach look like if we sit here and say this pool is not sufficient we don't just put up another website announcement that's useless what we do is we have to figure out a way to go find people of course which really means we have to have found them already so we don't have to be in that position but that's where right our outreach and our interface with the CPOs and the RAC matters so much because we know that website announcements as opposed to you saw somebody at the block party and you said have you ever considered being on such and such since you're complaining about such and such and that actually works way better than a website announcement that they may or may not be subscribed to and that is for the usual privileged people who feel like they can complain much less for people who are much less familiar with the standard operation of town government which is why we've been including a phrase along those lines in our vacancy notices that we're looking for people who haven't necessarily been previously engaged and building off of that my other initial comment had been that when we have to be really careful when we talk about the skills and I know there's the statement in the charter because the charter has many questionable in my opinion things in it but it talks about this whatever phrase associated with the type of applicant you should have but if I sit down with somebody for I don't know 15 minutes random person off the street I can find a way for them to express why their skills and experiences will reasonably qualify them for any committee experience in this town I can do that for them they can't necessarily do that for themselves because they don't know what's out there and what's interesting and I'm utterly appalled by the idea that we would sit here looking at our useless CAF that's currently not helpful at all in obtaining that information to be able to say oh we don't, this CAF is not qualified but this CAF is literally the only place I find that to be true is with Water Supply Protection Committee where we need these really technical skills from people and I'm not going to put on somebody who's just like really curious and interested and good at organizing that's not a good fit for them I'm going to find another fit for them but I can find a fit for anybody on any committee to work for them and so to dismiss some CAFs as not being appropriate unless as Evan pointed out occasionally people do make clerical errors and just apply for the wrong thing is not fair I mean we put people on shade tree all the time who don't know anything about trees other than the fact that they grow and that's fine because they're great shade tree members and so we've had wonderful success on that so I am not at all up for saying we toss out some CAFs early in the process and they don't count toward whatever number we have in our minds because we know the CAF itself is a problem and no matter how we change it people still aren't going to be able to express their full story in a CAF George. I think clearly this committee takes seriously diversity in demographics and will always be considering it when we make our recommendations I don't get a sense that anyone here doesn't see that as important but we also have an obligation to fill these bodies these are three extremely important bodies in the town with all due respect to the shade committee and to any number of other committees out there that do good work the ZBA, the planning board and the finance committee are not just any old committees and so I think we also have to balance our obligation to fill those bodies and I would be very uncomfortable personally with saying we're going to do another round for these bodies because we're not satisfied with the diversity in demographics we are concerned about diversity in demographics and it's something that we're going to be struggling with I think for all the time we're serving on this body but to say okay we've got enough applicants the pool is big enough but we're not happy with the demographics and the question immediately arises well what is it about the demographics you don't like is it race, is it gender, is it renters is it right, there are any number of possibilities and so I think we have to balance these two things and I'm very uncomfortable I would be uncomfortable with the situation where we say nope we're not going to make any recommendations for this body right now even though the pool is large enough because we don't feel it is demographically diverse enough which then raises the question that when we do make our recommendations doesn't that suggest that we're then going to be appointing someone who does fit our demographic or diverse picture and if we don't people will scratch our heads and say well why did they even do this at all so I want to say that yes we take this seriously it's going to be a long term process I'm not comfortable with using the actual appointment process with a way to force this issue I think it has to be addressed in other ways Other thoughts on diversity Sarah I understand the pure way in which George is approaching this in which we're saying if we desperately need someone for quorum on these committees that some of them are specialized that if we have a CAF or if we quote unquote know someone then we should just go ahead and fill that vacancy with someone that people on this council or on this committee feel known quantity I see that from the practical standpoint that I think that George is bringing that forward I would say to that that for me that speaks of a very real personal need for outreach as Alyssa said for actually seeing people and talking to people and knowing people and encouraging people because I will tell you as someone who running for town council I was a woman who only has a four year college degree and not a ton of experience and I needed someone to tell me hey I think you could do this otherwise I would not have put my name in the hat and I think that similarly especially for boards that we see planning and zoning boards which are so politically charged and so powerful there may be people out there who have the qualifications but they need to know that someone stands beside them or gives them a shot and it's not just going they don't even need to apply because it's just going to be that that town council decides to automatically grab a known quantity so I'm not sure I don't I can't tell you right now you know obviously it's just not a lot of applications but when we think about where we stand on outreach for our report appointments later I think that's something to really think about. Darcy. Just to clarify when I said that I think that we that if the pool isn't adequately diverse that we should have an additional round I didn't mean the advertisement on the town website it would just give additional time we would then be aware that the pool was all white men and that what we would be looking for so it would just give some extra time to do whatever outreach with the CPOs with the website with us knowing and being able to reach out for an additional X amount of time and then if we couldn't find anyone and go forward with the pool that we have it just is a way of showing that we're serious about really trying to get more diversity. So I want to add my two cents in here and I sort of agree a little bit with everyone even though you all are just agreeing with each other in that I think obviously if there's some type of emergency in a situation like where they're about to lose quorum especially for a body as important as planning board which doesn't at present have associate members then I think all of any desire to have enough applicants a certain number of applicants or a certain level of diversity would probably be suspended. I think if we wait until the very last minute to start recruiting people then that presents a problem but assuming that we recognize there will be vacancies in June if we start and we have a process in place so we don't use our entire winter coming up with a process then we can start recruiting something long term and I think that what Sarah said is actually really important so let me actually back up. I think that when it comes to diversity I agree with things that were said about having a holistic approach to things I think we need to look at what the pool looks like I don't want any type of arbitrary we need to make sure it's at least 40% women or 30% people of color I think those will only serve to hamper us but I think we do want to look and say is this a diverse pool by several factors like George mentioned it's not just race or gender socioeconomics and hopefully we have a CAF that can better collect that information for us I think it's also relative to the size of the pool there are three candidates and we decide that there's one vacancy and three candidates and that's enough it's hard to impose some diversity requirements on a very small pool but if we get 20 candidates for ZBA in the magical world and they're 100% white men I would actually probably be more likely to not move forward in that case because I'd say hold on what's going on here why are we having so many people interested in the ZBA and it's only a single demographic so I personally think diversity demographics should be considered I don't think that there should be any hard criteria but I think it should be a consideration but I think that we can't say that we're going to consider it without pairing it with an outreach strategy to actually reach out to these communities and I think part of that's on the CPO but I think part of that's on us so I don't want to say we're going to look at the demographics until we've also had a discussion on outreach about how we're going to work to make our applicant pool more diverse because then we're saying we're going to put in a potential barrier without ever putting in a way for us to move past it so I think the outreach needs to be paired with this I think they can't be separate I don't want to ever stop a pool if we I don't want to ever stop us from moving forward if we've tried and we don't get what we want but I do think it needs to be considered and I do think in a situation where we have a large pool that seems to be only one demographic then we want to turn to the people who are doing outreach and say whatever's being done try something new that's where I'm at so with both numbers and diversity I don't want hard criteria but I do want these things considered sort of as guidelines so that we can look at the whole pool holistically and say do we have enough of what we're looking for to move forward or do we need to turn to our outreach folks and say hey we need to do more recruiting and it can't look much like Alyssa said that doesn't just mean another post on the website that means thinking about outreach and recruiting in different ways Alyssa that was extremely well stated with all parts and I just want to make sure I push back just directly enough on the idea of a number of applicants I know it's easy because I love checklist myself and I don't think we use enough of them but they're also important not to misuse and so that's why I was so loathe to say oh well if the answer is plus one or the answer is plus two or the answer is plus three in terms of perceived vacancies and whether you count reappointments in there or not obviously affects that math but I heard at least one person say we don't have the right number but it might turn out that it's not demographically we don't have the right number then if we don't have the demographics there is no such thing in my mind as having an adequate number of applicants if there isn't some diversity associated with that and then you may end up having to write a report that says we tried 15 different things and we still only got x in terms of diversity and we still only got x in terms and we never ever want us moving forward to say we got enough it's too bad it wasn't sufficiently diverse because it wasn't enough if it wasn't sufficiently diverse George it looked like you were going to say something what about age in other words I sometimes look at pool and think where are the college students that make up more than half the population of Amherst so I hear Alyssa I think but it just when we start saying that this pool is not demographically diverse I guess we're going to have to agree on what the categories are because I could say that just about every pool that I've ever seen is demographically not diverse because it rarely if ever includes someone under the age of 24 in a town where over half the population is that age there about and outreach there is extremely difficult for any number of reasons that doesn't mean that some of us don't try but so I would say the demographic information we're seeking to collect on the CAF would be the demographic information that we'd say we consider but I think the point of not having criteria right is not to say for each of these demographic categories we need some representation which is why I think having sort of a broader view of the pool is important because I agree with you age is often ignored but we do ask it on the CAF Alyssa so we're talking about both hypotheticals and practicals here George specifically is we absolutely could say that every pool we've ever had is insufficiently diverse for people of color and for with maybe one exception and certainly for age that doesn't mean that just because we can argue that we should argue that it means we should be taking it into account and that's why we as a group have to justify that right and so rather than saying we have a checklist that says we have three upcoming vacancies we have four CAFs they appear to be this charter qualified for that oh we did our job I'm saying our job is more complex as we have already treated it we're not doing anything wrong now we just want to continue in the good work that we're doing now that is unfortunately not easy to quantify numbers wise and we should absolutely be looking at every single pool and saying we got this number not an adequate number but we got this number we got this many of this age we got this many that identified as other than white we got this socioeconomic given the balance given this committee as you said George given the skills that are in fact somewhat you know strong only related to planning board and ZBA you know given all those factors put together are you going to be the opinion that always is on the end of the 4-1 vote that says yeah but it's not a college student I mean how does that solve anything right but that means that we keep asking that question right can we find a role and maybe we can't on our committees or maybe we can on the finance committee for example but maybe we can't so much on planning board and ZBA but doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying and so that should always be a question age socioeconomic status all those things just like the number but the number does not go plus that the numbers just one of the many factors okay so I want to move on in our agenda I think I'm I think I'm hearing and again we're not taking any votes on any of this today but I think I'm hearing at least majority agreement that diversity demographics is a consideration in reviewing the pool and determining sufficiency of the pool to move forward what that looks like of course is more complicated but you know that's for later what I want to turn on to right now is agenda item 4B which is what creates a healthy multiple member body so in theory this is something we're going to return to a little bit later as well after we talk about how we do interviews when we talk about how we recommend appointments but because it's been such a large discussion topic in this committee and also in the council I wanted to have at least two discussions of it separated by some time and so after we have applicants and we're thinking about either I think we would think about this right before and after interviews which is what are we looking for in candidates who we might appoint and a lot of that has to do with the individual candidate but a lot of that has to do with the body itself and so we want to think about not just the skills and qualifications that an applicant brings to the table or perspectives or experiences but also what does the body need what applicant it's not always about which applicant has the most technical expertise or qualifications it's oftentimes which applicant fits best with what the committee needs to function well in that moment in time and so I wanted to have a conversation about what creates a healthy multiple member body there are two documents in the packet that are related to this one was written by Sarah when she was selecting ZBA and planning board she wrote up some criteria for what makes the healthy multiple member body that she used to select her candidates for planning board and ZBA we all read that we never actually had a real committee discussion about whether we agreed with it because we didn't need to in that moment I mean this was the OK Designee's criteria that she used to select but I think it would be useful for us to have some agreement over that and then the second one is the appointed committee handbook and I particularly pulled out sections 2.3 and 2.5 because those are the ones that talk about appointment and also talk about term limits which I think is an important part of this discussion and one we've kept saying we'll talk about term limits later we'll talk about term ins later we'll talk about term limits later so later is now so you lost your internet oh indeed so why don't we we can have both of these up but I want to look at what Sarah drafted for this conversation and so Sarah put forth three different criteria for what creates a healthy and monthly member body one is a strong chair with term limits two is a strong base of seasoned members and three is new members and I want to have sort of a fairly open we're not voting on anything a fairly open conversation about what we think makes for a healthy body and this again is a conversation that can include a discussion of whether we want to have term limits and that will inform how we look at Kennedy so thoughts this is a little bit bigger topic than the one we talked about before which is why we're going to return to it later again I was just going to say I already wrote mine down I did my homework other thoughts do we want to start with something specific to talk about okay term limits so let's start there because that might be the hardest one term limits generally so Sarah's just talked about term limits for the chair I believe but I don't have it right in front of me right now but our appointed committee handbook which since we have not adopted one or revised it we are still operating under 2.3 does have the statement in here that I'm losing right now George what are you going to say because I've lost my place we don't appoint or recommend or whatever chairs we simply approve or recommend appointments so it's up to the body to select their chair so I don't disagree with this statement at all I think it's perfectly sensible but it's not our job to choose the chairs of these bodies we simply make appointments or in our case we recommend to the council that they make appointments but we don't make we don't recommend to the council that they appoint somebody as chair someone on this zoning board or plan that's listen 100% correct I but I do think with it what this nicely feeds into is the future revision of the appointed committee handbook this is something if we did decide as a group we all agreed with which chances are we might agree with getting them we didn't give any pushback back when it was written first time but this could be another because that serves as guidance beyond the point of the appointed committee handbook is not to repeat stuff that's an open meeting law or ethics. It's like that's already out there. You're stuck having to do that stuff. The point of the appointed committee handbook is to give people a sense of what Amherst style is of doing things. And so just like there's this really long section on appointment here, there could also be a section in the chair section, for example. I mean, we could orient it anyway, but we don't have to say anything about it, but we already have this written, and we're certainly thinking about it as we're thinking about terms in general. I mean, I think it is generally applicable, even though she wrote it as for chairs, but we could also, if we wanted to, have separate guidance on chairs, we just would do it within that document, not within, like, selling our next appointments. By the way, out of the five appointments we're recommending, you should pick this one as chair. George. And again, I bring our attention back to the fact that we're talking about three specific bodies. And these, at least two of these three bodies, at least in my conversations with people who have served, are serving on these bodies, that there are a number of years needed simply to get up to speed. And this has been repeated to me by a number of people from different bodies about these two bodies, about CBA and planning. And so, if you're talking about term limits for a chair, and somebody served for three years on a body, and the body feels that they've acquired sufficient experience with this particular body that they would make an excellent chair, are you then saying that, well, they only get three years and then they're out? I do have some reservations about the application of term limits to planning board and CBA. I don't accept, I understand what it makes sense in many other contexts, and perhaps this group will agree. It makes sense in these two contexts as well, but I don't agree. Given the nature of what these bodies do, and given some of the conversations I've had with people who have or are serving on these bodies, there is a very steep learning curve. And you don't just walk in in a year or two, and you're ready to chair the ZBA or chair the planning board. And so, if we have a strict six-year limit on service on these bodies, which we may decide to do, or at least keep that, you're saying that a chair maximum could probably serve for three years? So I want to talk about term limits more broadly and not just about chairs. I think that Alyssa's right that that's something that could go into the Appointed Committee Handbook. And should we all continue serving on OCA past January, and should I remain as chair, one of the things I imagined we would do in the near future was take a look at that Appointed Committee Handbook for update now that we're under a new form of government. That's not what we're doing right now. But however, we do have to think about our OCA policy, which is separate of how we would recommend candidates. And so I pulled from the Appointed Committee Handbook the two statements that I think are relevant to the conversation. And what I would like us to do, I'm going to read those two statements, and I would like to have a conversation about those two, whether we agree with them, whether we don't, whether we want to change them, and that will be written into our OCA policy. So they are from 2.3, generally if a person is serving a first term, they are given preference for a second. Conversely, if a person is completing a second term, and there are other qualified applicants, preference would be given to a newcomer. And from 2.5, although there is no fixed limit on length of service, the length of service is normally limited to two terms, three years in length. In cases where special training or expertise is required, longer periods of service may be appropriate. So there's really two things within that. One is preferential treatment for candidates up for reappointment, and the second is, although not a fixed limit on number of terms, a preference for two terms without understanding the longer periods when there's special training. So what I'd like us to focus on right now is those two statements, agreement, disagreement, whether we want to continue that as our policy, as OCA, whether we hate that, I know I do something different. The Appointed Committee Handbook, yeah, the link's in our packet. So thoughts on those two statements, agree, disagree, want to change, want to just make our lives easier and say that's going to be our policy, what do we think? George, George. Maybe someone else should speak first, but I've got no one else to raise their hands. All right, fine, I raise my hand. I feel strongly that, again, we're talking about three specific bodies, in particular two, and I do have very grave reservations about this as a policy for ZBA and Planning Board. And I would encourage the members of this committee to actually, and maybe we can do it as a group, speak to not only people who are serving or have served on these bodies and get their input, but also perhaps ask people from the Planning Department to come and speak about this, or at least seek out their advice, because, again, I'm just speaking for myself, but unlike many, I think this is, generally speaking, an excellent idea for many, many of our committees, and I think it's healthy and appropriate, and I support it 100%, but I do have serious reservations about applying this to ZBA and Planning Board, and I would at least ask us to have a conversation, either individually or collectively, with Planning Department, staff, and or Brestrup, Christine Brestrup, to get some input, if they can give it, about the learning curve and about what it's actually like to serve on these bodies, because as I've said, and I'll shut up, I've been told by a number of people that the learning curve is very steep, and they really value people who have been able to stay on these bodies for a number of years, just given expertise and knowledge. I know those words sometimes get people's hackles up, but anyway, so that's, I have reservations about this strongly with these two bodies of ZBA and Planning Board. Alyssa. So my hackles aren't up on this story, but I will say, at the risk of offending many friends who've served on Planning Board and ZBA and in the Planning Department over the years, part of the reason it's so complicated to be on Planning Board and ZBA is because they are not given adequate training, and so while the practical reality is, it takes a really long time to get up to speed, the practical reality is also they do not consistently get adequate training and framing of issues, et cetera, et cetera, much as we've talked about at Town Council in terms of how is it that we know what we're doing, and that's traditionally been a problem with Planning Board and ZBA as well because there are only so many hours in the day, and no matter how competent staff is, depending on how much time you're willing to spend as a town to train people to do things, you might remember, for example, that Board of Assessors, they're required to go off to a certain training, the state level, they're actually not required to do that for Planning Board or ZBA. There are citizen planning seminars, but again, then you have to have volunteers as opposed to employees who are normally on the clock anyway, you have to have volunteers find time in their schedule to go to those training things, and only some people that are serving have the ability to do that, so how do you get that information back to here? So that is both the theoretical and the realistic of how it should be, but I also understand that practically speaking, it's not really how it is. I will say that even when we did have people serving for 10 years on Planning Board, we still didn't have a seat at Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, so that didn't solve the problem. Just having people there for a certain length of time was not sufficient to get us a seat on that particular body in terms of the executive board. I have talked to these people repeatedly because I used to be associated with them for various reasons, associated with the master plan and also the select board used to appoint ZBA, and I feel very strongly that exactly what it says right now, in cases where special training or expertise is required, longer periods of service may be appropriate. I feel that exactly covers your concern, and it's exactly why we reappointed somebody to the ZBA who'd been there a long time for exactly those reasons. And so it's really important to me, and we can, you know, wordsmith obviously, but it's really important to me when it says the part about the six years, and I'm even, you know, a little low to be as heavy on as the way the handbook is now on, yeah, you'll probably get offered a second term because our point is not to keep people in office. Our point is to have a healthy functioning committee. On the other hand, sort of like a tenure conversation, which is so important in the Amherst area, is we don't want to throw people off, you know, because we don't like the way they think, right? So that's an important protection for people too, as long as they're actually doing the work, right? We don't want to ditch them just because they're the ones that are always asking too many questions at meetings, right? Like that's not a reason to dump somebody. So that's a good reason to mention, yeah, you'll probably get offered a second term. But if you're just going to automatically just give everybody a second term, then just say terms are six years long and be done with it. Or admit to people we're not actually advertising for vacancies because we're just going to reappoint all these people that say they want to stay on and we aren't even going to interview them because I'm sure they're greater. We would have heard about it. So I feel like, of course, because I used to be responsible for this document, I feel like it pretty well walks that line between, you know, academic freedom, so to speak, being able to speak your mind on the committee respecting your commitment to it, not requiring that you continue on because some people don't even want to make a three-year commitment to things. And also saying we always have the out of special training or expertise which entirely explains, well, that and lack of recruitment. Both explain why we had some planning board members who have served for nine or 10 years on a regular basis over the whole time I've lived here. Darcy. So have those planning board members served that long because there were no new applicants? Question for Alyssa. Go ahead, Alyssa. In my experience, the planning board applicants serve for that long partly because of the special training or expertise is required, right? Because they became very conversant. They did go to trainings. They participated fully in meetings. They sucked up all the knowledge that's available and were incredibly useful members of the planning board and maybe other people had left, right? And so it was even more important to have somebody with a long history of experience because there was turnover in the rest of the membership to a point. Remembering that it was really hard to keep nine seats filled on a regular basis on the planning board. And so that was another reason to keep them because once you got somebody in and they agreed to it, then you could keep them and that was great. But the other part of it is clearly lack of recruitment because up until 2011, we weren't even interviewing planning board applicants. People would turn in a CAF, tell manager to look at the CAF and go, yep, no, yep, and send it on to the select board. Maybe a phone call, maybe not. There was no interview process. I'm not saying people were never interviewed, but there was no process associated with that. And so outreach, although we've gone through fits and starts over the years, was not a regular thing. We're paying much more consistent attention to it now. And so, yes, it was for a variety of reasons. One, because we use that phrase. Two, because there weren't a lot of other choices. And three, because it wasn't a big push to outreach for new planning board and ZBA members. And I think people had good intentions of wanting to do that, but nobody ever figured out how to do it. And now we get to try and figure out how to do it. D'Arcy. Where is that sentence about the can stay on indefinitely if... 2.5. It's 2.5. 2.5, we have one more. Sarah. So originally, when I looked at my document again and I thought, oh, the only place I put term limits was when I was talking about chair, is that I think that when we start to have these discussions about what an ultimate term limit should be, is that what you're constantly... So what I'm going to say is, so I think of something that wouldn't be a functional multi-member body. I think of like a stagnant pool. So nothing's moving. The same four frogs are there. There's no room to increase, you know. People, frogs stopped having babies because there wasn't enough room. And the riots, I mean, it's stagnant. It's not moving. And there's not a place for movement or growth. So I guess when I was thinking about the naturally how a committee turns over and also has fresh ideas and sort of moves with the progression of ideas and of certain time periods, you want to have institutional knowledge. I mean, I think that certainly on the council, a lot of us think, holy cow, once I've made it through these first three years, I've known so much about what's going on that I, you know, you can't have me leave yet because we're still really just starting this. If you want things to stay healthy and balanced, then you always have someone or a couple people at the sort of the top that are, have been there for a long time. They know the ropes. They kind of know the things that you can't just study on paper. You have to be there to know. And then you can impart that knowledge upon younger members. And I think that one of the things that we've all seen just starting here on a town council is that a chair is very important. And a chair definitely makes a committee either be effective or not effective. And the other thing is, is that if you lose a chair that's really good, everybody who's sitting here I think should always have a mind on being chair. And what that takes because if you lose a chair, right, you need someone who's going to move into that. I mean, I think I wrote all of this down, right? But, and then you have solid members who have been there before. But I think what happens is that if you, if the perception in the larger community is that we have five people that are amazing and have been amazing, they're going to stay there maybe until the day they die. And if the chair has been there, the chair is great. There's absolutely no way you're going to have that chair move because they're fabulous. We all agree they're there, they're an institution. What that does to the community and the whole is that people who could be great and amazing and who could learn, they don't want to apply because they know if they get onto a committee most likely because they're not a known quantity, they won't even get up to the middle part of the pack, never mind the front, right? And I think that term limits are there to keep the pond moving and to keep it fresh. So I agree with what the handbook says. I think that all of us when we keep in mind the healthy body needs to keep in mind that if you aren't at some point turning things over, then you are then just naturally killing off the people feeling like they could come in and they could succeed. So as we're running a little short on time, I want to try again, I'm trying to, there's some, clearly we don't have consensus but I do at some point we need to have at least majority in support of some policy and I want to get a sense of where people are right now so I'm going to do the same thing again where I'm going to read a statement and ask which one you agree with. Again, this is not an actual vote so don't worry about that and it's fine if you change this because we're going to return to this very same thing in November but I wanted to have a conversation at book-ended interviews because I think that we would consider this both when we're looking at CAS before we schedule interviews and as we're thinking about the sufficiency of the pool and I think we'll also be considering this after we select candidates. So I'm going to read three statements on reappointment and then I'll ask you if you agree with one, two, or three. Okay? Three statements. I can repeat them if needed. So number one, a person who served their first term and did their job well will get reappointment. Two, generally if a person is serving a first term they're given preference for a second and three, there is no preferential treatment for reappointment for someone who served their first term. So the difference is one is guaranteed reappointment, two is preferential treatment for reappointments, and three is no preferential treatment for reappointments. So can you raise your hand if you agree with one, guaranteed reappointment, two, preferential treatment for reappointment, and three, no preferential treatment for reappointment. Okay. Now I'm going to read two statements on term limits. One, a person's service on a committee ends after the completion of their second term, so that's hard term limits. Two, if a person is completing a second term and there are other qualified applicants, preference would be given to a newcomer. So one is hard term limits, two is soft term limits with preference for newcomers. Does that make sense? There's no three for this one. What was your third B, George? There are no term limits, or the term limits are real. So no preference? In cases where special training or expertise is required. That's where we're not there yet. Let's do, so which one of these do you agree with more then? I understanding nothing is black and white, but I have to eventually put some words on paper. So one is hard term limits, two is after two terms preference for newcomers, but it's not a hard limit. So who agrees with number one? That would be one. So yeah, so that would be one. So one is a person's service on the committee ends, no question, after two terms, and they're out. And the second one is actually the language from the appointed committee handbook. No, they would only be out in number one, if. No, it says a person's service on a committee ends after the completion of their second term. Right. That's a hard term limit, two terms and you're out, no matter what else happens. The second one is preference for two terms, preference for a newcomer if someone's served two terms, but it's not a definite hard limit. But is it a definite appointment of the newcomer? That's irrelevant here because it's a term limit to an incumbent. This has nothing to do with newcomers. So first choice that you've offered us, he's making it hard for us to see. The first choice that you've offered us says it doesn't matter who the other applicants are, even if there's no one else on the planet who wants to do this, you're done. You're done, hard term limit, two terms, there's a vacant. The second one is making this very concrete, the second, which is fine. The second one is that you're saying you might after two terms, you in theory could still get reappointed because of the expertise statement. But our preference is going to be for newcomers. Or are you saying after one term because I'm confused? No, no, no, this is the second term. It says if a person completing a second term. Okay, well term limits, if term limits is only about two terms, then that means everybody gets six years. I mean, you can't have a second option that says the software's preference, because that's not the same as the Appointed Committee Handbook choice. The Appointed Committee Handbook choice is after your first term, newcomers will be given a preference to you getting a second term. No, this language is cut and pasted from the Appointed Committee Handbook. If a person, right, so, right, I'm not putting years down, just number of terms. I'm talking about after, if you've already been reappointed, you're finishing a second term, are you definitely out no matter what? Or is there a possibility for continued service but a preference for a new person? And those are the two choices. I know there's gray areas, but I'm trying to simplify this. So statement number one, hard term limits, you're out no matter what, after a certain number of terms, two terms. Statement number two, preference for a newcomer after two terms, but potential for you to stay on. Are you abstaining from this, Alyssa? So the last thing we're going to vote on is raise your hand if you agree with the statement in cases where special training or expertise is required, longer periods of service may be appropriate. So the reason I'm having trouble with this is I can't agree that it's a hard two terms and I can't agree that preference for newcomers after two without the qualifier that it's because you have special expertise. So I wanted to separate that out because I wanted just pure agreement on that issue because I do think that's a slightly separate thing. All these things are related. So can I just say, I'm going to read the statement, because part of this is are we literally going to adopt as part of our policy the appointed committee handbook language or are we going to change it, which is what I'm trying to assess right now. And so the statement, in cases where special training or expertise is required, longer periods of service may be appropriate. Can you raise your hand if you agree with that statement? Okay. I just have a comment about that. I would find it really unusual if a person were on the planning board for six years that they wouldn't have experience and expertise. So why would that not apply to everyone finishing their second term? And so that would be an out for every single person. So I find that crazy because that- Melissa. I will tell you that my practical experience is people don't always serve very well when they serve on committees. And so just showing up in which they didn't even necessarily show up doesn't mean they have the same skills and experience as someone who went to trainings, who did additional readings, who did additional research. They could have been there the same period of time and served very much less competently than the other person. And so therefore I don't believe that that person can make the case that they have special training or expertise just because they were sitting in the seat. It would be the committee that would be making the case if they wanted that person to continue. So that argument could be made for anyone. They might not be making it for themselves. But anyway, I'm just saying- Sarah. I would say that Alyssa's point is very valid. And I would say in that case if we're going to agree to that, I think Oka would also need to have or we would have to have some kind of hard and fast evaluation of people who had served on committees for one or two years. I mean, I think that would also help us make up our minds. I think if we're going to take that into consideration, we actually need to know or we need to have some parameters of what it means to be an excellent productive member of a board or committee. Okay. So George, do you have one last comment? Just quickly, there's no rule as far as I know of preventing us from speaking to staff and consulting them and getting their input and also speaking to current members of that body and getting their input. Okay. So we're getting a little bit over time. And so I want to move on in the agenda with a reminder that we are going to return to this exact topic again in November. So this was our first discussion of it. So now you have a good month to sit there at home and use your free time to think about whether you agree with the straw votes you took today, whether you want to change it, whether you have new ideas, because we will return to this issue of term limits and the broader criteria of a healthy multiple member body, which we didn't get to get to everything. Agenda item five is discussion of the 923 report to town council. There's a report that's in the town council packet. It is also in our reports folder. And it details the request that we are making of the council to separate out the CIFs. And in some level of detail, the rationale that we have for doing that, that will not necessarily be voted on tonight in the council, but I will be the focus of my OCO report with hopefully some feedback from the counselors on this. And of course I will be giving a brief oral report to just say we voted unanimously to recommend to register our voters. Are there questions about the report tonight, Alyssa? I don't think it was posted adequately for us to be able to vote on it tonight. I'm not saying we were inadequate. I'm just saying I don't think it conceived of the fact that we might be ready. Yeah. Yeah, I think my hope is for 10-7. So that's that. I want to say also if you look in your packet, you'll see the OCO fall 2019 agenda schedule that we don't have to discuss this. We're not going to discuss this right now, but this is if you have any question about where I'm going with things or how I plan to actually organize things. This is my intention for our currently scheduled meetings, the topic for each meeting, what we'll be doing. Because I realized that you showed up today and unless you had read the packet ahead of time, by which I mean sometime after I posted it at like 9 p.m. last night, you had no idea what we're actually going to be talking about other than just discussion of the appointment process. So I want to make sure you aware what part of the appointment process we will be discussing in every meeting. This is a draft. It will likely change. Notice October 7th. We'll also be talking about the ZBA vacancy. And then we've because we keep getting things thrown at us. We also are responsible for Town Council appointment of liaisons. And I have put that I'm going to be putting that tentatively on our October 21st agenda. George. Thank you for doing this. And if anyone has any questions or comments, you can speak to me individually. If you see something like, wait, we need to do this and that's not here. Maybe that's what Alyssa's about to say. No, can you just tell me what the word interviews means when it's a sub bullet? That everything that has to do with interviewing candidates. So that's I have three. I wondered about that too. Right. So are we interviewing someone? No, no, no. These are the topics that we're discussing. So the question of how we're going to about go about scheduling and conducting interviews of candidates. I put that for three meetings because I think that will likely be the most contentious and time consuming part of our discussion is how we go about interviewing candidates before we bring them forward. Darcy, do you have a question? What, what were we asked to do about liaisons? We are making the recommendation to the council on who gets what committees. Really? It's per the charter liaisons are a town council appointment and town council appointments go through OCA. We have real power now. So, yes. So that will be October 21st. Okay. Is there any public comment? If you could just come up and use the mic so we can get it for the camera. Is it on? Correct. Yes. Arkeene, Amherst, Indy, just a request that you post the packet so it's accessible to the public before the meeting. I know you only had a chance to send it out to your colleagues at nine o'clock last night. But it is hard to follow what's going on when you're referring to documents and I can't see them. So, please post the packet and I'll make a request to you, Evan, that I could see some of those documents before we go to press at the end of the week. Thank you for your comment. Okay. There are no top. It's an unanticipated item. I completely object to the idea that you would provide any additional information to the press that isn't what this needs to be and as I've described to public commenters before, this is a problem with town resources. This is not our personal problem as part-time elected officials to figure out which press outlets want us to send them our packets ahead of time. It is the town should be providing just as they do for the town council packet, they should be providing a place where we can easily upload our packets. That's not up to just as it wasn't up to our previous chair to provide. And I object completely to the idea that we would individually do that. That needs to be done through the town where they say, here's the place you can put it, Evan, as chair. You can put it on there and it'll be there for everyone. It's not appropriate to have it be for some people who show up at a meeting and some people who don't because it should be out there for the entire public. I completely agree. Okay. Thank you, Alyssa, for determining that topic not anticipated for the chair. I don't want to discuss this because it wasn't part of our agenda and it's not really part of our charge. So with that, only 10 minutes late, we are going to adjourn the meeting at 11.40 a.m.